Edit: actually, blackmail is a crime IIRC, so there goes that.

While her actions certainly fit the technical definition of blackmail, I would expect that most siblings' threats of "Give me money or I'll tell Mom" go unprosecuted and unpunished.

Indeed, unreported.

Edit: actually, blackmail is a crime IIRC, so there goes that.

While her actions certainly fit the technical definition of blackmail, I would expect that most siblings' threats of "Give me money or I'll tell Mom" go unprosecuted and unpunished.

Indeed, unreported.

They'd in all likelihood only pertain to petty sums and be dropped regardless, not deal with hundreds of dollars like in this case. Dat sleeping course ain't cheap.
It's like the punchy tsundere: it's only cute if no one really gets hurt.

Also: An action doesn't become a crime once it's reported. It either is or it isn't (with "crime" obviously having degrees of severity), regardless of whether it's discovered, reported or prosecuted.

last edited at Feb 19, 2022 4:43PM

Edit: Also to clarify some of my thoughts, the MC instead of bonding with her sister over being gay, or being excited to have a family member like her, instantly uses the opportunity to get money from it. She doesn't hear her sister say "I'll do anything", and respond with saying it's okay she has her sister's back or anything. The narrative cheaply uses her sister being gay as blackmail...so the MC can buy more sex.

Oh I wholeheartedly agree that this would have been the more reasonable approach, but she's not acting like a reasonable person. She's, again, acting like a drug addict, barely shy of actually committing crimes to get her fix.

Edit: actually, blackmail is a crime IIRC, so there goes that.

True enough yeah. I think I have some personal problems with how things progressed and were handled here. It's fine and it is what it is. Every work is going to effect people differently, and it's part of why discussing it and seeing how other people feel is interesting.

I should have known what I was getting into by the title but the MC still keeps finding ways to surprise me with her scumminess.

This chapter gave me the same sort of uncomfortable feeling as it seems to have given others, but it also is the first really scummy thing she's done. I think the issue is that her scumminess is established as being fairly harmless, but then this less than harmless blackmail is being treated the same. You start with something like this and establish that the character is shitty, then give her an arc to not be, but this is so out of nowhere and seems like it'll be treated the same as everything else.

last edited at Feb 19, 2022 6:43PM

Edit: actually, blackmail is a crime IIRC, so there goes that.

While her actions certainly fit the technical definition of blackmail, I would expect that most siblings' threats of "Give me money or I'll tell Mom" go unprosecuted and unpunished.

Indeed, unreported.

They'd in all likelihood only pertain to petty sums and be dropped regardless, not deal with hundreds of dollars like in this case. Dat sleeping course ain't cheap.
It's like the punchy tsundere: it's only cute if no one really gets hurt.

Also: An action doesn't become a crime once it's reported. It either is or it isn't (with "crime" obviously having degrees of severity), regardless of whether it's discovered, reported or prosecuted.

Wow, that was a surprisingly serious response to a mostly jocular post of mine. Now when I consider the number of felonies and misdemeanors that went unpunished among the five kids in our family I feel like looking over my shoulder for Inspector Javert . . .

This chapter gave me the same sort of uncomfortable feeling as previous, but it also is the first really scummy thing she's done. I think the issue is that her scumminess is established as being fairly harmless, but then this less than harmless blackmail is being treated the same. You start with something like this and establish that the character is shitty, then give her an arc to not be, but this is so out of nowhere and seems like it'll be treated the same as everything else.

Yeah I think that hit the nail on the head. The issue isn't her being "more scummy" than before, but it being (so far) presented in the same way. I'm coping with it, if you will, by having convinced myself that she'll eventually get her comeuppance. So far she would in all likelihood have gotten away with a slap on the wrist, but now... oh boy.

@Blastaar
... sorry ;D
Also: kids will be kids, but Makino's a high school graduate who hasn't realized that she's basically an adult now. Not that I could ever relate to that in any way whatsoever! I totally didn't live off my parents' money for years on end after graduating from secondary education.

last edited at Feb 19, 2022 4:57PM

This chapter gave me the same sort of uncomfortable feeling as previous, but it also is the first really scummy thing she's done. I think the issue is that her scumminess is established as being fairly harmless, but then this less than harmless blackmail is being treated the same. You start with something like this and establish that the character is shitty, then give her an arc to not be, but this is so out of nowhere and seems like it'll be treated the same as everything else.

Yeah I think that's a big part for me as well. Where her actions got worse but the story doesn't seem to act like they have.

"Scummy" sure is accurate. It was bad before but it's crossed the line from "bad but in a kind of cute way" to "wow, what an asshole." Blackmailing your own sister for money to not tell your parents that her boyfriend is actually her girlfriend while you've been regularly spending your parents' money on prostitution behind their backs (and as a woman hiring a woman yourself) is a true low.

And what makes it worse is that she doesn't feel bad at all! She's just happy about having a new source of income. Yikes.

last edited at Feb 19, 2022 5:18PM

Please, everyone's going on about this but simply based on the comment Satou made regarding if she's doing well money-wise makes me think she's going to find out about this and scold her, then they're going to come up with a solution for it.

And the specifics of the deal between her and her sister are left completely up to the imagination anyways. It's presented in such a way that you aren't given any information besides her having more money. It's always a possibility that her sister and she have come to an understanding with a monetary benefit to her and a privacy benefit to her sister. Who fucking knows.

Yeah people are definitely mischaracterizing her here. They’re acting like she went “I know , I’ll threaten my sister and get her to give me money!” rather than what actually happened, which was the sister making up both sides of the scenario in her head and then just taking the money her sister offered her. She never actually threatened her nor would she ever rat her out to her parents. She wouldn’t have even “blackmailed” her if the sister hadn’t done 90% of the work herself. Yes it’s scummy, but you guys are making out to be more sinister than it is. Jeez I was all set to come into this comment section to talk about how she was finally living up to the scummy title only for you guys to run so far afield into the realm of hyperbole that I find myself playing defense instead.

I mean, it's write scummy in the title, what did you expect ? A pure MC ?

Edit: actually, blackmail is a crime IIRC, so there goes that.

While her actions certainly fit the technical definition of blackmail, I would expect that most siblings' threats of "Give me money or I'll tell Mom" go unprosecuted and unpunished.

Indeed, unreported.

They'd in all likelihood only pertain to petty sums and be dropped regardless, not deal with hundreds of dollars like in this case. Dat sleeping course ain't cheap.
It's like the punchy tsundere: it's only cute if no one really gets hurt.

Also: An action doesn't become a crime once it's reported. It either is or it isn't (with "crime" obviously having degrees of severity), regardless of whether it's discovered, reported or prosecuted.

Wow, that was a surprisingly serious response to a mostly jocular post of mine. Now when I consider the number of felonies and misdemeanors that went unpunished among the five kids in our family I feel like looking over my shoulder for Inspector Javert . . .

I not sure I get the tone of your response here. You acknowledged there was mismatch in tone between your previous post and yet you seemingly double down here instead of trying to explain the apparent misunderstanding.

So, to be clear, what is the joke exactly? Is it that equivocating an adult blackmailing a sibling to two kid siblings doing bullshit to each other is so absurd that it is humorous? Or is it because you genuinely think these two things are comparable and that, in itself, is humorous?

Because, lets make a thing clear. I personally don't have a problem with this chapter. It is funny, the MC sucks and that is funny to me. But she does suck. She is awful, blackmailing your sibling for being gay is actually really serious and not at all comparable to more petty "please don't tell mom" bullshit. Two adults being siblings doesn't one permission to being awful to the other, specially over frankly serious stuff. And even if forcefully outing someone wasn't serious in itself, even if it was petty bullshit, it is still awful to blackmail your adult sibling when you are also an adult. That is not petty pocked money kids received from their parents. Like, even as kids that behavior would be censurable, you should try to educate kids better than that, but by the time they are adults they should know better and be responsible for their actions.

Yeah people are definitely mischaracterizing her here. They’re acting like she went “I know , I’ll threaten my sister and get her to give me money!” rather than what actually happened, which was the sister making up both sides of the scenario in her head and then just taking the money her sister offered her.

That is a bizarrely disingenuous reading. If you know the other party made a misunderstanding and you just went with that it is not a misunderstanding anymore. It is willing deception and, in this case, also blackmail.

Boy, I was kinda expecting some people would be too bothered by the MC actions and complain about it here, what I didn't expect was people outright defending the behavior. The MC's action suck, she is awful. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy the story but please do recognize that this sort of behavior is not, in fact, good.

last edited at Feb 19, 2022 7:19PM

I like these lil author notes that update her life. It's cute and I look forward to them just as much as I do the chapter :)

The mc of "a scummy gap student..." Is a scummy person!? IMPOSSIBLE

Jeebus doods, scummy-chan just heard dollar signs being given to her (from her perspective) unprompted and took the deal

It's a super standard younger sibling move

Satou: Uhh, you're requesting me a lot, are you doing alright financially???

Makino: Yeah, absolutely, by using textbook and blackmail money

So Satou has another secret identity: Exam taker. Don't get how it is a big reveal, but at least we got a different look for her.

Makino is being a bitch, and a very stupid one. There's no way her sister won't discover Makino is using money to pay for an escort, and now that Makino blackmailed her, she'll have all the motivation needed to to use that information against her.

The MC's action suck, she is awful. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy the story but please do recognize that this sort of behavior is not, in fact, good.

I mean, one of my favourite series is Warikan, exactly because the characters are awful. I love me a good train wreck drama series, but ScummyGap was rather light-hearted comedy so far, and this kinda clashed with that.

That doesn't mean that we won't get more hilarious hijinks out of it. (edit: oopsie, wrote that wrong)

Come to think of it, though, IIRC Makino had considered using her knowledge of Maron/Satou's moonlighting as leverage before, hadn't she?
Edit: no she hadn't. quite the opposite :D

last edited at Feb 19, 2022 8:11PM

The MC's action suck, she is awful. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy the story but please do recognize that this sort of behavior is not, in fact, good.

I mean, one of my favourite series is Warikan, exactly because the characters are awful. I love me a good train wreck drama series, but ScummyGap was rather light-hearted comedy so far, and this kinda clashed with that.

It didn't feel much of a clash to me. As the action is, it isn't treated as such, so it is still light hearted. Not that I don't understand the shock. So far Scummy-chan had only scammed her own parents who also suck, albeit in a different way , so it is easier to not care too much (also power dynamics are different). The only other person she interacts regularly is Maron who is also the one person Scummy isn't shit towards, even when given the opportunity (not by much, but still).

Edit: actually, blackmail is a crime IIRC, so there goes that.

While her actions certainly fit the technical definition of blackmail, I would expect that most siblings' threats of "Give me money or I'll tell Mom" go unprosecuted and unpunished.

Indeed, unreported.

They'd in all likelihood only pertain to petty sums and be dropped regardless, not deal with hundreds of dollars like in this case. Dat sleeping course ain't cheap.
It's like the punchy tsundere: it's only cute if no one really gets hurt.

Also: An action doesn't become a crime once it's reported. It either is or it isn't (with "crime" obviously having degrees of severity), regardless of whether it's discovered, reported or prosecuted.

Wow, that was a surprisingly serious response to a mostly jocular post of mine. Now when I consider the number of felonies and misdemeanors that went unpunished among the five kids in our family I feel like looking over my shoulder for Inspector Javert . . .

I not sure I get the tone of your response here. You acknowledged there was mismatch in tone between your previous post and yet you seemingly double down here instead of trying to explain the apparent misunderstanding.

So, to be clear, what is the joke exactly? Is it that equivocating an adult blackmailing a sibling to two kid siblings doing bullshit to each other is so absurd that it is humorous? Or is it because you genuinely think these two things are comparable and that, in itself, is humorous?

Because, lets make a thing clear. I personally don't have a problem with this chapter. It is funny, the MC sucks and that is funny to me. But she does suck. She is awful, blackmailing your sibling for being gay is actually really serious and not at all comparable to more petty "please don't tell mom" bullshit. Two adults being siblings doesn't one permission to being awful to the other, specially over frankly serious stuff. And even if forcefully outing someone wasn't serious in itself, even if it was petty bullshit, it is still awful to blackmail your adult sibling when you are also an adult. That is not petty pocked money kids received from their parents. Like, even as kids that behavior would be censurable, you should try to educate kids better than that, but by the time they are adults they should know better and be responsible for their actions.

Yeah people are definitely mischaracterizing her here. They’re acting like she went “I know , I’ll threaten my sister and get her to give me money!” rather than what actually happened, which was the sister making up both sides of the scenario in her head and then just taking the money her sister offered her.

That is a bizarrely disingenuous reading. If you know the other party made a misunderstanding and you just went with that it is not a misunderstanding anymore. It is willing deception and, in this case, also blackmail.

Boy, I was kinda expecting some people would be too bothered by the MC actions and complain about it here, what I didn't expect was people outright defending the behavior. The MC's action suck, she is awful. That doesn't mean you can't enjoy the story but please do recognize that this sort of behavior is not, in fact, good.

The outrage is impressive here, even though everyone has acknowledged that what the MC is doing is wrong, and worse than anything else she has previously done. Blackmail is bad—we all get that.

But as usual, these pious lectures always ignore the fact that in stories context matters—generic context (the expectations for a given genre), tonal context (the tone set up by a given story, including the art style as well as the writing), authorial context (how a given author usually tells stories), etc. The idea that readers of this story might be led to think that real-life blackmail is “good” is quite ludicrous.

If this behavior were done in real life, it would be thus and so—and what of it? This isn’t the kind of story (at least so far) where the sister is going to charge the MC with a crime. The fact that the sister basically volunteered the blackmail scheme herself does matter for this story. Yes, the story is treating serious (in real life) matters less than seriously, as stories often do. Rather than “defending” the actions of the MC, I at least, and I believe others as well, are pointing out the farcical elements in this story that make it comedic rather a crime drama.

Jeebus doods, scummy-chan just heard dollar signs being given to her (from her perspective) unprompted and took the deal

It's a super standard younger sibling move

Can't argue with that.

Blackmail your own sis.
What could possibly go wrong?

Anyways, I guess I can sum up a lot of my feelings of this with: "I support women's rights. I also support women's wrongs. I love it when women do bad things."

I was coming here to say as much--I've previously been defending MC here, but using her sister's sexuality to blackmail her is downright scummy.

I've previously been defending her as well... and I'm still defending her now!
If Makino-chan has only one knight in all the forum willing to fight for her, that will be me!
(I'm like Ivanhoe championing Rebecca in her trial for witchcraft. I suddenly feel so cool. )

This chapter has nothing that I haven't seen before in hundreds of youth movies and novels and tv series. One sibling sneaks out of the house at night for a hot date with someone the parents don't approve of, another sibling finds about it, then the first one must bribe the other sibling to purchase silence. It's a super typical interaction between children or teens, and there must be a thousand variants of it depending on what it is that must be kept hidden (lots of possibilities, not necessarily related to romance) and what the one who has to keep mum wants as a bribe (again, lots of possibilities, heavily contingent on the age of the kid).

I'm completely, absolutely, 100% certain that the relationship between Makino and her Onee-san hasn't been strained in the least by the events in this chapter. If anything, Onee-san is grateful to Makino for not revealing her secret -- and sees the money she gave her as an allowance to her cute baby sister.
(Remember: Onee-san is an independent adult from a very wealthy background, the fee she paid is most assuredly nothing to her.)